Facts of Faith

Facts of Faith, by
Christian Edwardson, originally published in 1943 by the Southern Publishing
Association, has been reprinted by CHJ Publishing.This 320-page bookis
available from The Bible Sabbath Association, 3316 Alberta Drive, Gillette,
WY 82718, for $12.00 postage paid.

Since there has been such a distortion of the facts relating to the
history relating to Sabbath keepers, Edwardson compiled an extensive list of
quotations from original sources.This
collection of facts does indeed help to strengthen our faith.The source of the distortion of facts is the
Roman Catholic Church in general, and the Jesuit order (Society of Jesus) in
particular.

Catholicism Versus the Bible

The Roman Catholic Church for hundreds of years was against the reading
of the Bible by the common people.The
Church feared that if the people read the Bible, they would lose faith in the
Church, and oppose her worship as idolatry.Burning Bibles was a common tactic of Rome, and is well documented.When the Protestant Reformation and the
printing press proliferated the Bible to such an extent that it was impossible
for Rome to limit Bible reading, Rome advanced her own corrupted version, the
Vulgate, the mother of many modern versions such as the New International
Version, while the Waldenses and other Sabbath-keepers maintained a more pure
version of the Scriptures.

Edwardson produces direct quotations from Roman Catholic authorities to
prove that their foundation is not the Bible only, as is ours, but the Bible
and tradition (rulings of the Popes and councils), with tradition having the
preeminence.

The “Little Horn”

From history we see that the “little horn” of Daniel 7:8 is the
Papacy, which arose among the ten European kingdoms into which the Roman Empire
(the fourth beast) was split.It caused
three Arian kingdoms, which stood in its way, to be plucked up by the roots
(Heruli, Vandals, Ostrogoths).Roman
Emperor Justinian in A.D. 538 published edicts which compelled all to join the
Catholic Church in ninety days or leave the empire, and confiscated all their
goods.This, according to Edwardson,
began the 1,260 year period of the reign of the “little horn,” for “a time and times,
and half a time” (3 1/2 times = 360 x 3.5 = 1,260).Roman Catholicism was made the state religion, and all other
religions were forbidden.In 1798,
exactly 1,260 years later, Napoleon’s armies under the French general Berthier,
conquered Rome, took Pope Pius VI prisoner, and declared an end to the temporal
reign of the Pope, converting the Papal States into the Roman Republic.

Further, this “little horn” was to “speak great words against the Most
High,” Daniel 7:25.Statements
from Popes and official Catholic sources confirm that Popes believe, as Pope
Leo XIII wrote, “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.”Rome’s definition of “heresy” is anyone who
will not blindly submit to papal authority, but will read the Bible, deciding
for himself what he shall believe.More
than 50,000,000 “heretics” have been slaughtered at the behest of the Roman
Catholic Church.

The “little horn” should “think to change times and laws,” Daniel
7:25.After the worship of images
had crept into Catholic Church during the fourth and sixth centuries, its
leaders removed the second commandment from their doctrinal books, because it
forbids us to bow down to images, Exodus 20:4-5, and they divided the
tenth, so as to retain ten in number.They admit they changed the day of worship from the Biblical Sabbath to
Sunday.Mithraism, a refined religion
of sun worship, had captivated the Roman Empire.By the middle of the third century A.D., it was on the verge of
becoming a universal religion.Roman
Caesars, soldiers, and learned Greeks embraced Mithraism, with its popular
Sunday (“venerable day of the sun”) and birth of the sun on December 25.Sunday, in the Roman world, stood for what
was eminent and popular, while the Sabbath, kept by the Jews andChristians, stood for what was despised and
looked down upon.The Church lowered
its standards, mixed heathen sentiments into Christian doctrines, and became
permeated with pagan ideas.The Church
could reach the heathen better by keeping their day.Emperor Constantine, an inveterate Sun worshiper, enacted a
Sunday law in A.D. 321, forcing people in cities to rest on Sunday.Pope Sylvester co-operated with Constantine
to bring paganism into the Church, causing the Sabbath-keeping Waldensians to
declare that Pope Sylvester was the Antichrist.

The Church at this time consisted of two widely different kinds of
members.First, the old class who had
accepted Christianity by genuine conversion and separation from the world, who
lived mostly in the country and out-of-the-way places. Second, there were new
converts who lived mostly in big cities, who had come in through a mass
movement, following the crowd in what was popular, attracted by hopes of
temporal gain or honor, who were devoid of any personal Christian experience,
but constituting the majority.Are
there two such classes today?

Waldenses Kept the Sabbath

One of the great lies told today is that the Waldenses did not keep the
Sabbath. Also, it is falsely reported that the Waldenses originated from the
twelfth century work of Peter Waldo.Dr. Peter Allix, author of the authoritative work, Ancient Church of
Piedmont, states, “It is not true, that Waldo gave this name to the
inhabitants of the valleys: they were called Waldenses, or Vaudes, before his
time, from the valleys in which they dwelt...It is absolutely false, that these
churches were ever founded by Peter Waldo. . . .It is a pure forgery” (pages 182, 192 of his book, 1821 reprint
of 1690 edition).Allix shows further
that the Waldenses kept the Sabbath (page 169 of the 1821 edition, page 154 of
the 1690 edition).Pope Gregory (A.D.
590-604) railed against “certain men of perverse spirit [who] have sown among
you things that are wrong and opposed of the holy faith, so as to forbid any
work being done on the Sabbath day.”

Historian William Jones reports that King Louis XII (1462-1515) was
informed by the enemies of the Waldenses inhabiting Provence that they had
committed “heinous crimes,” but upon investigation, King Louis found that they
kept the Sabbath day, observed adult baptism, taught their children the
commandments of God, and were better men than himself or his people (History
of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, pp. 71-72, London: 1818).David Benedict reports that the Waldenses of
the Alps were called Sabbati, Sabbatati, Insabbatati, but more
frequently Inzabbatati, “so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because
they kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day” (General History of the Baptist
Denomination, Vol II, p. 413, Boston: 1813).

Briefly, Edwardson covers the Sabbath-keeping history of the Celts,
Zinzendorf, Sabbath-keepers in India, Scandinavia, and the Taiping in
China.He shows the deceit and
wickedness of the Jesuit Francis Xavier, who sought to destroy the Sabbath
keepers of India by the Inquisition.Facts relating to the Reformation have been suppressed by the Catholics,
who deny that indulgences were sold, and cover up the utter depravity of the
priests.During the Middle Ages, if you
were an honest and upright person, you were suspected of being a “heretic.”

Papacy the Antichrist

The identification of the papacy with the antichrist is especially well
written.The Waldenses, Wycliffe,
Tyndale, and Luther all agreed that the Pope is the Antichrist, yet due to the Futurist
Jesuit philosophy, many today believe that the antichrist is not the papacy,
but some future individual who is yet to appear.A title of the Pope is “Vicarius Filii Dei,” Latin for “Vicar of
the Son of God.”Eyewitnesses have
observed this title on one of the Pope’s triple crowns during his
coronation.The Roman numerals of this
title add up to “666.”

Along with Seventh-day Adventist beliefs of prophecy, Edwardson
believes that the “two-horned beast” of Revelation 13:11 is the United
States, allied with Papal Rome.There
is no doubt that a major aim of the Catholic Church is to make America
dominantly Catholic, and that if this is accomplished, our religious freedoms
will vanish.Textbooks have been
revised to be more favorable to Rome, and less favorable to Protestants.Authentic church history books have been
suppressed.The press favors the
Catholic Church, and libraries have excluded books which expose the evils of
the Inquisition, while opening their shelves to scores of pro-Catholic books.The Catholic Church organization’s avowed principles
are diametrically opposed to liberty of speech, press, and religion, as
understood by the founders of the United States of America and incorporated
into its fundamental laws.

The Road to Canossa

Papal doctrine, as enunciated by Pope Paul IV in 1559, states “The Pope
as representative of Christ on earth has complete authority over princes and
kingdoms, and may judge the same.All
monarchs, who are guilty of heresy or schism [as defined by the R.C.C.], are
irrevocably deposed...deprived forever of their right to rule, and fall under
the sentence of death.If they repent,
they are to be confined in monastery for the term of their life, with bread and
water as their only fare.No man is to
help an heretical or schismatical prince.The monarch guilty of this sin is to lose his kingdom in favor of rulers
obedient to the Pope” (Life and Times of Hildebrand, Arnold Harris
Matthews, p. 288, London: 1910).Any
person dealing with the excommunicated king became thereby himself
excommunicated.

Have you traveled the “road to Canossa”?Many people today, even in Sabbath-keeping churches, have
traveled this road.It is the road of
compromise, or accommodation, with the Church of Rome, submission to the Papal,
antichristian, authority.

King Henry IV traveled the road to Canossa.He is a type of many, before and after, who have capitulated to
Rome.On February 22, 1076, Pope
Gregory VII excommunicated Henry IV, and “forbade him to govern Germany and
Italy, dispensed his subjects from the oath of allegiance they had taken to
him, and forbade every one to obey him as a king.”To prevent the loss of his kingdom, Henry had to give in.He set out across the dangerous Alps during
a severe winter, at last arriving at Canossa, Italy, where the pope temporarily
abode.In the penitent’s garb of wool,
fasting, and barefoot, the “mighty” king stood outside the fortress, begging
the Pope to allow him to rule his own country, awaiting the pleasure of the
Pope for three days before “His Holiness” would condescend to admit him.Gregory extracted from Henry the promise of
a meeting among the princes of Germany, where “the pope as judge” was to decide
whether Henry was to be “held unworthy of the throne according to
ecclesiastical law” or not.He
excommunicated Henry a second time, March 7, 1080, and installed a new king,
which plunged Germany into civil war.

The power of the papacy over civil government was epitomized by Pope
Gregory at Canossa.Those who travel
the road to Canossa today are surrendering like Henry did.Mentally, they are supporting the Pope of
Rome.

Jesuits Are Enemies of the
Sabbath

Europe today might have been a Protestant continent, even France and
Italy, had not the Jesuit order been formed, and the Jesuit-led Council of
Trent led a successful counter reformation that regained much ground taken from
Catholics during the sixteenth century.An official tenet of Trent was that tradition stands above
Scripture.The tactics of the Jesuits
have not changed.Today, they are still
very active as militant, highly organized, shock troops of the Pope.

Jesuits are bound under oath to look to their General (the Black Pope
who sits in Rome, as opposed to the White Pope, the Pope most people are
familiar with) and Superiors as holding “the place of Christ our Lord,” and
must obey them unconditionally without the least hesitation, a “corpse like
obedience.”For their dirty work of
subverting political, religious, educational, and social systems, Jesuits have
been expelled from fifty different countries, such as England, France, Spain,
etc.Even Pope Clement XIV, in 1773,
abolished the Jesuit order, which order was reversed by a later Pope.The phrase, “the end justifies the means,”
comes from a free translation of several official statements of purpose of the
Jesuits.They will lie, steal, murder,
and do whatever it takes to further the papal power.They are the arch enemies of the Sabbath, only one example being
the Jesuit extermination of the Sabbath-keeping St. Thomas Christians of India.

Mark of the Beast

If you do not believe that the Mark of the Beast involves Sunday
keeping as opposed to Sabbath-keeping, then you probably ignore official
Catholic statements, cited in Facts of Faith.Cardinal Gibbons’ chancellor wrote that the change of the Sabbath
to Sunday by the Catholic Church is “a mark of her ecclesiastical power and
authority in religious matters” (1895 letter).Protestants who accept Sunday are traveling the road to Canossa, and
being inconsistent and rebellious against their “mother” Church.

In the Catholic Rheims English New Testament, published in 1582, we
read, “And if the Church had authority and inspiration from God, to make
Sunday, being a work-day before, an everlasting holyday: and the Saturday, that
before was holyday, now a common work-day: why may not the same Church
prescribe and appoint the other feasts of Easter, Whitsuntide [Sunday
Pentecost], Christmas, and the rest?For the same warrant she hath for the one she hath for the other.”The Roman “Decretalia,” an authentic work on
Roman ecclesiastical law, states, “The pope has power to change times, to
abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of
Christ.”Sunday-keeping “not only has
no foundation in the Bible, but it is in flagrant contradiction with its
letter, which commands rest on the Sabbath, which is Saturday.It was the Catholic Church which, by the
authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the
Sunday . . . .Thus
the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in
spite of themselves, to the authority of the Church” (Plain Truth About
Protestantism of Today, Segur, p. 213, Boston: 1868).

God’s “name” will be written in the foreheads of His people, Revelation
14:1.The choice is clear before us
today: take the road to Canossa, or instead take the road to salvation through
the Messiah.

Facts of Faith, a
320-page book by Christian Edwardson, is available from: The Bible Sabbath
Association, 3316 Alberta Drive, Gillette, WY 82718, for $9.95 postage
paid.It is an excellent companion book
to Truth Triumphant by B.G. Wilkinson.